The Forbidden Zone Ch. 11

Chapter Eleven - Family

Three Months Later

More of the 'Others' came. After the first wave they just kept coming. It soon became clear that this forbidden outer world was no safer from the manufactured scourge of what was left of humanity than anywhere else.

In fact it may have been even more dangerous as it seemed to be attracting the 'Others' with ever-increasing frequency.

Three days prior to today the sanctity of our little haven on the mountain had been breached.

Mel had killed three of the invaders in the courtyard while we had watched on with a gun in our hands ready to use them if needed. Mel hadn't needed the help though and thus the attention that a gunshot would bring had been avoided, but the reality was that the next time we might not be so fortunate.

Today, Shakaza and I had said goodbye to our little home that God had provided for us, before following after our man down a path that would take us back to the sea.

As contented as we had been at the house on the cliff the reality for us was that it had never been our home.

Our home was our man. A man, who had already seeded the essence of his life into both of us.

We each bore the evidence of his child within us with pride. We were both intensely relieved in some way as if the greatest thing achievable to us as women was in the making.

We could not ask for a better Master or our children for a better father. He was a source of constant provision, safety and love to all of us.

He had been contented to stay at the house as much as we had been, but from the first week he had been actively planning a contingency plan for us or perhaps just what might be a better way of life should we need to leave the house.

The thought process behind his plan was simple. We needed to return to the world that we had always known.

On the surface while it seemed dangerous the reality was that being here could be even more dangerous.

With the reality that most of humanity was wiped out back where we had come from there stood to be a good chance of finding a safe hamlet to hideaway in.

Counterpoised to that, this forbidden outer land seemed to be flashing a neon welcome sign to every entity rendered soulless by the very elite who had populated this land first and who had held it selfishly in reserve for their own purposeful enjoyment.

The judgment falling down upon them should not become ours as well as we'd had no part in their evil ways and so it was good for us to leave this land.

The lands we would be returning to were now in some ways as much of an unknown as this land had been for us but it didn't matter. Where our man led us we would follow.

Over the past few months most of the supplies had been shifted out of the house by the cliff to yet another remotely located château by the seacoast that had been as abandoned as the first had been, only it had not been stocked with provisions as ours had been. In fact it had never even been lived in.

It had been a house in waiting for some upper echelon CEO or junior family member of an elite bloodline to inherit someday no doubt.

More important than the house though was what we had found moored off at the dock beside the house.

A pristinely appointed sailing yacht with all the bells and whistles that money could buy. Even though the boat had the functionality of sails there were still aspects of it that needed electrical input and if it had just been up to us the boat would have been virtually useless to us.

But God had provided a way for us, because over a month ago we had bumped into and made an alliance with two young couples that had managed to survive as we had.

The one couple had at its masculine head the Japanese boy from the cruise liner whose name was Nio. He and the leading man of the other couple were both extremely talented with all things mechanical and possessed a great ability to problem solve.

From them we confirmed what Mel had surmised to be true that there had indeed been a worldwide EMP event of such magnitude that it had fried out even the EMP hardened systems of the elites, which is why they were probably even now being actively wiped out within their own land as they lay blind to the invasion of outside forces with no way to stop them reaching the shore.

All their advanced technology and orbiting satellites and so forth was so much excess garbage right now. All they had to rely upon was a supply of bullets that was being actively depleted from by the day.

Nio and the other guy though had managed to circumvent the damage done to the ship's power system and get what was needed back into working order.

Everything had proceeded extremely well in the past month with the preparation to get the ship underway and leave this land, but I felt a lot of trepidation today in our final approach to the seacoast.

The two couples knew that we were coming with the last of the supplies, but with already having so much of the contents of the house by the cliff stowed on board the boat what was to keep either of the two men from leaving without us with their two wives?

I didn't want to think so negatively of them, but still the question of that occurring kept gnawing away at me inside.

Regardless I kept my worry to myself and trusted that Mel had the situation under control.

One positive point to be considered was that neither of the boys, who now seemed much more like men, seemed to be the sort to do such a thing. Time would shortly tell though.

Shakaza glanced over at me and intuitively I felt that she too had reservations about what we would find at the seacoast.

Our worries seemed to be confirmed as we witnessed Mel begin to move faster and faster along the path and the effort to keep up with him was made only the more extreme for the two of us.

Did he suspect that they may have left without us too?

An hour passed by and now we could hear the crash of the waves that sounded out even over the heavy pants for breath that our lungs were starved for.

Finally we cleared the last patch of forest obscuring our field of view of the château by the beach.

It was still there and more importantly so was the sailing yacht!

Inwardly I immediately felt bad that I had judged the others so wrongly.

Gasping under the load of our heavy packs Shakaza and I grinned at each other as the reality that we were going to get out of here resurfaced as a joy to be felt.

All merriment over our improved chances of survival was wiped away then as we witnessed Mel whip around to stare hard back up the way we had just come from.

His nostrils flared wide, even as every muscle of his frame seemed to stand out with rigidity as if he was a herd stallion that had caught sight of a predator sneaking in to grab an unsuspecting foal.

Shakaza and I both wheeled around to view our back trail, but in those frantic seconds we saw nothing to be alarmed by. Mel's large hands closed over our shoulders and turned us back around to the boat forcefully and gazing at each of our panicking faces he said brutally, "Run! Do not stop! Tell them to get the boat going!"

Emotions caught up in the moment of not wanting to leave him were propelled to further silence then by him actively shoving us both down the trail toward the beach.

It was hard, but obediently we obeyed even as a new strength came to our legs to replace the weariness that we had been feeling from carrying the packs for most of the morning.

Halfway to the boat and not able to stop myself I spun around to look back.

I saw no signs of pursuit, but neither did I see Mel!

His pack lay forlornly discarded in the middle of the path.

Crying I turned back around to continue on even as a wail of intense prayer broke out within me in a direct line to my Creator on behalf of my man, but all that came to the surface of my inwardly cried out prayer though were the words, "Please God! Please God! Please God!"

Up ahead of me Shakaza yelled out and activity stirred at the boat.

I saw Nio and the other guy jump off the boat and come running towards us across the beach.

Both of their wives joined in and within moments they were all upon us.

Nio and the other guy were pulling off our packs and shouldering them even as their wives were looping an arm around each of us to help us continue on towards the boat.

It really was quite obvious to all what was going on but obedient to Mel I gasped out, "Mel said to get the boat out to sea!"

Nio nodded affirmatively and both men ran hard for the boat with our packs and it was then I realized why they had waited and perhaps why Mel hadn't seemed too concerned with the level of trust that he had put in the two young men to wait for us.

He was the clear leader of the group and both men knew their best chances at survival lay under his guidance of authority.

Sides heaving painfully we made it to the dock and almost done in by both exertion and emotional overload we tumbled our way onto the yacht.

The other women left us then to run off to the château and wheezing Shakaza and I pulled ourselves up to look over the ship's side.

The engine of the boat was coughing to life behind us and the waves crashed all about us, but still the sound of repeated gunshots rang out loudly above it all.

"Oh God! Oh God please!" I begged, only to hear much the same coming from off Shakaza's lips.

We loved our man and right now....right now....we didn't know... we didn't know if our lives could go on, because he was our life now.

Just then the other two girls tumbled on board with the items they had brought from the house.

Gasping they crawled over to us with tears in their eyes as if the sight of our emotional turmoil was simply too overwhelming for them not to join in with.

Nio was feverishly rigging up a rope tied off to a life preserver and once done with that he called out to the other man and the boat separated away from the dock.

As the boat moved out rope fell over the back of the boat into the stirred up water.

Shaking uncontrollably as the dock fell away from behind us I turned to Nio and wailed out, "You are not leaving him!!!"

He shook his head violently and said, "No! His plan. He tell us to do it this way in emergency. You watch and see. We not leave him!"

"I see him!" Shakaza screamed out and with that my head whipped back around.

I cringed to the center of my being as I witnessed the strung out horde of what could only be termed as something foul that loped along after him like a disease maddened pack of coyotes.

Mel was running flat out across the sand with everything he had.

His body wasn't the runner type by far and yet right now he could've competed in the Olympics.

The boat halted in the water now almost 200 feet away from the dock.

Nio and the other guy joined us at the railing then in a flurry as both of them brought up the two other rifles that had been at the cliff house.

Taking aim they started popping off rounds, but with the sea swell rocking the boat about roughly, few members of the horde were falling out of line.

I didn't breathe as I watched the tableau before me play out as if it was occurring in slow motion.

Mel was visibly beginning to slow down.

I raised my hand to my mouth and bit it hard as I could now see that Mel was either injured or he was covered in the blood of 'Others'. Maybe it was both.

His feet hit the dock and in a stumbling run with now just feet separating him from the front runners of the pack I watched him dive for the life preserver that Nio had left on the dock.

He grabbed it up and fell with it into the waves.

As if from a long way away my senses took in the reality of yelling close by.

My gaze found Nio and the other guy frantically pulling on the rope that had been left to trail out behind the boat.

Stumbling I rose up to my feet and ran to them even as the horde behaving like a pack of lemmings plunged into the waves in pursuit after Mel.

My hands gripped the rope and heaved along with suddenly everyone else on board.

The life preserver seemed to skip out over the waves with its attached burden hanging on even as my mind fearfully remembered the feeding frenzy that had occurred in-route to shore from the cruise ship.

If it was even humanly possible I pulled even more rapidly than before upon the rope.

It could have only been just seconds, but it felt like hours went by before Mel reached us.

When he did the force of our efforts literally sailed him up over the side and onboard with a splash of cold seawater.

As he fell with a slam to the decking boards both Shakaza and I were instantly beside him. Turning him over I saw him blink and then he was coughing up water.

Heaving for air he wheezed as we clutched on to him, "Okay....I'm okay."

'Oh God, thank you!' I inwardly praised.

The boat was moving fast now and in concern I glanced back to see if there was about to be an invasion over the side of the boat. The reality of what I saw was far from it.

The waves behind us were red as a literal feeding frenzy developed between us and the dock.

The sharks around here were simply not to be messed with.

My gaze turned back to Mel as we held him securely between the two of us. My searching gaze and fingers confirmed that most of the blood I had seen on him was not his.

Catching our gazes he said again as he fought to catch his breath, "I'm... okay. Stop ....worrying."

Despite his words tears fell freely from our eyes and emotionally I said, "We can't help it! We love you!"

His breathing stilled slightly and in reply as he raised both his hands to cup our crying faces he said, "I love you both too. I'm not going anywhere."

Smiling we kissed at his hands.

Still huffing for breath he wheezed out, "I'm just not built to run like that. Give me hard labor....something heavy to pick up....working in a salt mine....would be preferable...... over that. I could sleep..... for a week!"

Shakaza evened herself out to lay beside him on the deck boards, and whispered out, even as she pulled him into her soft form, "Sleep all you want my love. We'll be here for you when you wake up."

His eyes closed as she pressed his head to rest against her chest even as her arms held about him in a way that said she would never let go.

Finding the strength from somewhere I rose up off the deck boards and going to each of the girls I hugged them and thanked them for what they had done to help us.

They shook their heads and then the one said, "Do not thank us, Nysha. We are family! From this day forward the fate of one of us is linked to all of us!"

Smiling I hugged her all over again. I looked over at Nio only to see him and the other guy grinning widely.

They each gave me a big thumbs up and I gave them one in return.

I owed these people everything and what she had said was true. We were family now.

Letting go I walked back the way I had come.

The shore of this forbidden to outsiders place that we had been brought to against our will, for the most evil of purposes, was blessedly falling away in our wake now.

I couldn't be gladder to see it disappear even though some of the best moments of my life had taken place there.

Reaching the couple laying now fast asleep in the middle of the day on the deck of the yacht I got down on the boards and joined them.

Nothing seemed more natural in the moment then to cuddle into each other like this.

Cuddling in against Mel I looped my arm across him to lay it lovingly upon my sister.

Silently, as I watched them sleep, I thanked my God for all that I had been given.

We were going to be okay. I just knew it somehow.

The knowledge of that came from a place of inner peace that surpassed all understanding and as it washed over me I basked in its reassuring glow of a future that I could trust in because I served a God that was in control of everything.

I drifted off to sleep with them.

This was home. I was home.

'Thank you, God!' I whispered out over and over within the inner working realm of my soul as I experienced the absolute peace of being joined together with my family.

THE END

Author Note: I do hope you enjoyed the story and found it meaningful.

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Aedan Sayla